Re-Imagining Youth
Confirmation:
Themes, Practices, & Particularities
Lisa Kimball
Elton
Terri Martinson
Virginia Theological Seminary
Luther Seminary
Research
Question
What is the state of confirmation
and equivalent practices within
five denominations that practice
infant baptism?
Research
Design
Mixed Methods:
Quantitative: Survey
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✴
Population
Sample
Email, Online
Qualitative:
Portraiture
✴
Site visits: 20
congregations
and 5 camps
Themes
• Resilient
• Contextual and owned by
congregation
• Adaptive and responsive
• Committed leadership and
resources
• High parental investment
• Bridge, not graduation
Practices
•
•
•
•
•
Building on congregation’s strengths
Tending relationships
Mentoring
Exploring beliefs
Making public affirmation of faith
Three Hopeful Shifts
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✴
Purpose
Pedagogy
✴
Context
Purpose
Engagement first,
doctrine second.
✴
✴
Shift from focus on rite to
focus on youth
engagement
Adaptive practice meeting
spiritual hunger
Purpose
Lifelong followers of Jesus
first,
Christian
community second.
✴
✴
Shift from focus on
equipping for church
membership and
denominational loyalty to
lifelong journeys as
followers of Jesus
Personal faith as part of a
larger tradition and
connected to Christian
community
Purpose
Confirmation as an
intensive, focused time of
learning the practices and
beliefs of the Christian
faith.
Question - How is
confirmation meeting the
spiritual hungers of youth
AND teaching the beliefs
and practices of the
church?
Pedagog
y
Freedom & Accountability
✴
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Shift from traditional,
didactic instruction to
resource-rich learning
environment
Draws on the agency of
students, invites them into
teaching and learning
process
Pedagog
y
Life-wide, relationally-rich
✴
✴
Shift from cognitive
learning about Christianity
to active engagement
with it
Intentionally designed to
connect personal life, faith,
and world
Pedagog
y
Confirmation as
transformational learning
and vocational
discernment
Question - In what ways
is confirmation ministry
drawing youth into a
vibrant learning
community?
Context
Local & Organic
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✴
Shift from uniform practice
to working with
congregational and
contextual assets and
challenges
Ongoing discernment and
attention to congregational
and contextual needs
Context
Congregation-wide
✴
✴
Shift from separate
ministry/event to process
owned by congregations
and connected to the
wider church/community
Shared leadership and
ownership of confirmation
Context
Confirmation as
adaptive and resilient
faith formation ministry
Question - How is
confirmation ministry
taking into account the
particularities of your
setting?
Themes, Practices, & Particularities
Three Shifts
Purpose Pedago
gy
Context
Lived Tensions
Accommodation – “Orthodox” doctrine
Gospel as status quo – Gospel as
disruption
Quick and easy – Slower and deeper
Need mentors – Spiritual maturity of
mentors
Focus on confirmation – What’s next?
Re-imagining
Confirmation
It matters
It takes a team
Builds intergenerational learning
community
Claiming the Way of Jesus
Practitioners need to talk with each other
www.theconfirmationproject.com